88 Ind. 248 | Ind. | 1882
— The complaint of the appellant, omitting the formal parts, is as follows: “On the 15th day of April, 1880, the defendant spoke of and concerning the plaintiff, to andi in the presence of Frank Me Alpine, John G. Waldo, Nelson R. Galbreath, and other persons resident of said county and State, of and concerning a certain contract that plaintiff had of and from the director of district number nine, in Washington School Township, to Darius Pollock in October, 1879, that is to say, that in October, 1879, that he, said Andrew Pollock meaning, had in October, 1879, at a regular school meeting of the citizens of said district, met for the purpose of selling or letting the contract to the lowest bidder to furnish the wood for said district for the year 1880, to be furnished and delivered at the school-house in said district on or before the first day of April, 1880, and that plaintiff, at said meeting, was the lowest bidder and took said contract, and was to furnish twenty-five cords of good wood to said district for one dollar per cord, and the said plaintiff avers that on the 10th day of April, 1879, as before stated, and while speaking of said contract.
' We have not copied this complaint as a model of good ipleading, but for the reason that it is impossible to dispose of the questions arising in the case without setting out all of the ■averments of the complaint.
The complaint does not set forth any words that are slanderous per se. It is not slander per se to charge a man with fraud, or to say of him that he is a cheat or a swindler. The defamatory words charged in the complaint can not be deemed to do more than characterize the appellant as a cheat and a •swindler; they do not assert that he has been guilty of any ■crime. There is no charge in any of the language used, that the appellant was guilty of a crime, and, therefore, the words are not actionable per se. Odgers Libel & Slander, 53.
If words actionable in themselves are spoken of a transaction which is not a crime, and of which the hearers have full knowledge, they are not actionable. It clearly appears from the statements of the pleading before us that the appellee was speaking of a transaction which did not, as, all who heard him knew, constitute a crime, and therefore, even if words descriptive of a crime had been used, there would have been no actionable slander. Hotchkiss v. Olmstead, 37 Ind. 74 (see authorities, p. 80); Odgers Libel & Slander, 100, n.
The allegation in the complaint that the words used had a provincial meaning, signifying that the person of whom they were spoken had obtained money or property by false pretences, does not make the complaint good. The pleading shows that the,, transaction of which they were spoken could not
Where a recovery is sought because of special injury in the way of office, profession, or business, the business or profession must be pleaded as a substantive and traversable fact. There is in the complaint before us no allegation that the business of the appellant was that of selling wood.
The demurrer to the complaint was properly sustained.
Judgment affirmed.